Peter Ellison interview (transcript)

Ranch Family Oral History Project: Peter K. Ellison Page 1
RANCH FAMILY DOCUMENTATION PROJECT
TRANSCRIPTION COVER SHEET
Interviewee: Peter K. Ellison
Place of Interview: Wells Fargo Building, Salt Lake City, UT
Date of Interview: March 25, 2011
Interviewer: Randy Williams
Recordist: Randy Williams
Recording Equipment: Marantz digital recorder: model No: PMD660; Shure omnidirectional microphone: model no.MX 183
Transcription Equipment: Power Player Transcription Software: Executive Communication Systems with foot pedal
Transcribed by: Susan Gross
Transcript Proofed by: Randy Williams (19 May 2011); Peter K. Ellison (August 2011)
Brief Description of Contents: Mr. Ellison talks about his experiences ranching on the Ellison family ranch as a young boy during the summer. He talks about his family history, the history of the Ellison Ranching Company, and his past and current roles in the ranching company as president.
Reference: RW = Randy Williams (Interviewer)
PE = Peter K. Ellison (Interviewee)
NOTE: Interjections during pauses or transitions in dialogue such as “uh” and starts and stops in conversations are not included in transcribed. All additions to transcript are noted with brackets.
TAPE TRANSCRIPTION
[00:01]
RW: Today is the 25th of March, 2011, and I’m here in Salt Lake City, at the Utah State headquarters, at the Wells Fargo building, with Mr. Peter Ellison. Thank you so much for agreeing to be interviewed today for our Ranch Family Documentation project.
PE: Well, thank you; this is going to be fun, I hope [laughs]. Ranch Family Oral History Project: Peter K. Ellison Page 2
RW: I think it will be, too. Well, would you mind giving me your full name, your birthday, and your parents’ names?
PE: My name is Peter K. Ellison, and my father is Harris Adams Ellison; and my mother, Jane Weber Ellison.
RW: Who were your father’s parents?
PE: My father’s father was Lawrence Ephraim Ellison; he was the banker in the family, he was president of First National Bank in Layton almost all of his career. His father started First National Bank, and Ellison Ranching, and quite a few other businesses.
RW: And that was EP Ellison?
PE: Yes.
RW: And I noticed his middle name was Peter – is that where you get your first name?
PE: Yes, yes; his middle name –
RW: Right.
PE: He’s Ephraim Peter.
RW: Excuse me; his middle name is your first name.
PE: Right.
RW: Um-hmm. Well, we were talking, before we went on tape, about your growing up, formative years. And it sounds like part of it, or maybe all of it, was on a ranch. Can you talk a little bit about your growing up years?
PE: Well, I grew up in Kentucky. But at about age 12 I started coming to Utah. The Ellisons came to Utah in 1852, and so my father’s family are in Layton and Kaysville. So I would come out on the bus, or the train at 12 years old, and spend the summer out here. And then when I was 13, my cousin [Matthew R. Simmons] and I (who was the same age) would go out to the ranch and work for the summer.
[02:51]
RW: When you say “ranch” – part of the Ellison Ranching Corporation?
PE: Well actually, the ranch I worked on was a ranch that Ellison Ranching Company used to own (bought in about 1912 or ’13), and then during the Depression sold about five ranches in the Quinn River Valley, north of Winnemucca [Nevada]. And that’s where I worked. But at the time I worked there they weren’t owned by Ellison Ranching Company, but they were owned by Ellisons. Ranch Family Oral History Project: Peter K. Ellison Page 3
RW: I see; so some relatives?
PE: Yes.
RW: I see. One of the things we were talking about just a minute ago, what a great history – in the beginning, in 1910 when your great-great-grandfather started buying ranches.
PE: Yeah, great-grandfather.
RW: Did I say great-great? Great-grandfather.
PE: [Laughs]
RW: Up and through the Depression, and talking about those times, selling off some of the ranches, to pay some of the debt, to be able to consolidate.
PE: Right.
RW: Today Ellison Ranching – I don’t want to get too ahead of myself here, but – is a continued operation. And so do you feel like those experiences as a young, 13 year old boy, working with your family, your cousin and some of your relatives, uniquely prepared you to mange this company today?
[04:33]
PE: Well, my main career was in banking, and I’ve been president of the ranching company now, for about 22 years, and I’d been on the board for 30-plus years. So my real career isn’t ranching, but those experiences certainly helped me to be president of the company. And we have real good people that know a lot more about cattle and sheep than I ever will. But they report to me, so I guess maybe I’m more of a gentleman rancher. But those formative years, working on a ranch, were just invaluable I think; a big part of my life.
RW: Can you tell me a little bit about that time, when you were a young boy?
PE: Well, some of the things, like some of my stories I’ve told to my kids 1,000 times, but we used to make $5 a day. And those were 12 hour days mowing hay, and fixing fence – those are the major summer jobs. And bringing the cattle off the mountain, off the BLM in the late summer, early fall.
But I often think about a Levi jacket in Winnemucca that I just wanted in the worst way, and it was $11. And every time we’d go into town, we got a half a day off every other Sunday. And we’d go into to town, and I’d go to this store and look at this Levi jacket. I’d figure it would take me two and a quarter days to make $11. And I never did buy it. Finally, I’d been telling this story to my kids so many times that they finally bought me a Levi jacket.
[Laughing] Ranch Family Oral History Project: Peter K. Ellison Page 4
[07:35]
But it taught me the value of a dollar. That’s just one lesson.
RW: Um-hmm.
PE: That helps you throughout your life. And working hard, and being expected to do a good job. You are measured as a man, or a person, by how hard you worked. And if you didn’t work very hard, you weren’t much of a person.
RW: So, did you start out stacking, or what was one of your entry-level jobs?
PE: I started out mowing hay.
RW: Mowing.
PE: And being on top of a stack, we had a buck rake—a beaver slide—process of making hay stacks (just loose hay in stacks).
RW: Um-hmm.
PE: And you could make $7 a day by being on top of the stack. And hay would be dumped on top of you, and there were two of us up there tromping the hay, and compacting it a little bit. And so I thought, “Well, for two bucks a day, that’s a heck of a raise; I’ll do that.” And I soon realized why nobody wanted that job, even at $7 a day. So I went back to mowing hay, and raking, and a buck rake [to push the hay onto the beaver slide].
RW: Um-hmm.
PE: So it was fun as a 13, 14, 15 year old kid, to be driving this equipment. I really enjoyed that.
RW: Was the equipment, when you were a boy, horse drawn, or were you working with mechanized?
PE: Yeah, it was – the Ellison Ranching Company – I think the first tractor that the company bought was in about 1940. But most of the work was done with horses – mowing, raking, putting up hay. Stanley Ellison used to say that tractors were nice, but when it’s cold [they wouldn’t start], horses always started. And so they used horses for a long time. But when I was working there, we were driving tractors.
[10:36]
RW: Now Stanley would have been your father’s cousin?
PE: Yes.
RW: So was he the manager of the – Ranch Family Oral History Project: Peter K. Ellison Page 5
PE: Yes.
RW: Ellison Ranching Company when you were a boy?
PE: Yes.
RW: Did you kind of – I don’t know – work underneath him as you were going through?
PE: Well, when I was working – I am confusing the situation because the ranch I worked on over in Orovada, Nevada was an Ellison Ranching Company ranch until about 1931, I think. And one of EP Ellison’s sons bought several ranches north of Winnemucca. And so the Ellison I worked for was Lyle Ellison.
RW: Hmm. So when the Ellison Company was selling off to the bank, then one of his sons purchased it from the bank? [Mr. Ellison notes: This was the Home Ranch. Rebel Creek and the Buffalo Ranch.]
PE: No, he purchased it directly from the company.
RW: I see; interesting. Well, over the years did you continue to go back, during your teenage years and work for him?
PE: Yes, yes.
RW: You mentioned that you did a little cowboying; I mean, you were doing a lot of summer haying, but what kind of cowboying jobs did you do?
PE: Well, when school was out, that was about the time they were taking the cattle up on the mountain that was BLM and Forest Service property.
RW: Um-hmm. So, moving off deeded ground?
[12:28]
PE: Right, yeah – out of the meadows and up to the summer grazing. And then in the late summer, sometimes we’d start bringing the cattle back.
RW: Did you work with the crew on branding? Was that too –
PE: Sometimes; most of the branding was done in April.
RW: Um-hmm.
PE: But we’d find calves that hadn’t been branded, and so we’d, you know, have a dozen of them to do at a time.
RW: Well one of the things I’m real curious about is the Ellison Ranching Corporation, or the company itself. You mentioned for many years, before you actually were the president, Ranch Family Oral History Project: Peter K. Ellison Page 6
you were on the board. How has that worked? Because I know, reading through the book about your great-grandfather that there was a board from the very beginning.
PE: Yes.
RW: And it sounds like that has continue through?
PE: Yes; it started as a Utah corporation, and then in 1952, it became a Nevada corporation. But like any corporation, you have a president, and other officers, and a board of directors, and we’ve always met quarterly. And of course the board sets policy, and approves major business decisions. So that was very interesting. Earnest Wilkinson was a member of the board; he was president of BYU. And when he died in 1978, that’s when I went on the board.
RW: How many board members are there?
[14:42]
PE: There’s seven right now; and there have been five to seven. I remember (speaking of Earnest Wilkinson), that one board meeting . . . (I used to attend board meetings before I was actually a member of the board. Stanley Ellison invited me to attend these meetings. And I remember the first time I met Earnest Wilkinson.) . . . he came to the meeting and he said, “Stanley, we now have 10,000 students at Brigham Young University. So we finally have more students than you have cows.”
RW: [Laughing]
PE: And Stanley said, “Yeah, but our cows are a lot smarter.”
[Laughing]
RW: Oh.
PE: And it wasn’t too long after that that Mr. Wilkinson died, and I took his place [in 1978].
RW: Well, you (off tape) mentioned that you’ve had the good fortune of working with a lot of great ranch managers. How does a ranching corporation find ranch managers, and all the different personnel that actually do the day-in, day-out work on a ranch?
PE: Well, from 1910 until about 2002 – all of the managers were Ellisons [or married to an Ellison]. Finally, by around 2002, I was president, and we needed a ranch manager to manage all of the ranches. And that was the first time we didn’t have a family member that we felt good about putting in that job. So we advertised in the Western Livestock Journal (which is sort of the Bible of ranching), and got about 150.
RW: Wow. Ranch Family Oral History Project: Peter K. Ellison Page 7
PE: Applications or resumes. And we narrowed it down to the person we hired. And he’s a very good manager.
RW: So since 2002 you’ve had this gentleman?
PE: Um-hmm.
RW: What’s his name?
PE: Bill Hall.
RW: Where did he come out of?
PE: He was managing a ranch in Colorado, up near the Wyoming border.
[17:43]
RW: I see. Now, you say a ranch manager – you’re talking about ranches?
PE: Yes.
RW: Because there’s more than one ranch.
PE: That’s right.
RW: In the corporation. How many ranches are there today, in the Ellison Ranching Company?
PE: Today, our headquarter ranch is the Spanish Ranch, near Tuscarora, Nevada. And then we have the 71 Ranch, which is near Halleck, Nevada (east of Elko about 20 miles). And the PX Ranch, which is in North Fork, Nevada (over the mountains from the Spanish Ranch). And we connect, we border the PX in a lot of places. We just bought that ranch about four years ago. In fact, Bing Crosby used to own the PX. And then we have Fish Creek Ranch, south of Battle Mountain [Nevada], and several farms where we grow alfalfa (mostly). So there are four major ranches.
RW: Um-hmm. One of the things I was so impressed – I mentioned to you that I was over at the Spanish Ranch last summer, interviewing the cow boss out there: Ira T. Wines. And it was so interesting, in my interview with Ira, learning about how at the Spanish they have the big cow-calf operation, but then a lot of the yearlings will go somewhere else.
PE: Right.
RW: Can you talk a little bit about some of the different activities at some of your ranches?
PE: The Squaw Valley ranch that we owned until about 1995 (and we traded that ranch for the 71 ranch) it was the Squaw Valley ranch – a very large ranch close to Midas, Nevada. (And I can show you on a map where all these places are.) Ranch Family Oral History Project: Peter K. Ellison Page 8
RW: Um-hmm. I recognize that name – wasn’t that one that your great-grandfather bought?
PE: Yes.
RW: Seemed like you had that for a long time.
PE: 1916, I think.
RW: Um-hmm.
PE: And we take – our sheep [where they] winter down by the Fish Creek Ranch, south of Battle Mountain, and then they trail north and east, through Squaw Valley (and we still do this; we reserved the right to bring our sheep through Squaw Valley), into the Spanish Ranch, and then all the way up to near where the PX is. We had a lot of property around Gold Creek, Wild Horse reservoir, that area. So our sheep go all the way up there, and then in the fall they start coming back. And it’s about 200 miles that those sheep and the sheep herders are walking back and forth twice a year. So in a year, they go about 400 miles.
RW: Some distance.
PE: Yeah; that’s like from here to Cedar City and back.
RW: Um-hmm.
PE: And the PX – we don’t really raise sheep on the PX, or the 71 Ranch. But Fish Creek, and then they trail through the Spanish Ranch. But, the summer grazing for sheep are up near Wild Horse reservoir.
RW: I see. Is that the only holding that you keep sheep at? Or do you have sheep at other places?
PE: No; all the sheep – we have about 10,000 sheep, and they’re all together. I mean, in different bands.
RW: Right.
PE: We have five bands of about 2,000 sheep. So they’re not all lumped together in one band.
RW: Sure.
PE: We keep them separated.
[22:40]
RW: What breed or breeds are you?
PE: The sheep are – oh my goodness. It’ll come to me in a minute, when I’m not thinking about it, but very common. Ranch Family Oral History Project: Peter K. Ellison Page 9
RW: Like a Suffolk’s?
PE: No, no.
RW: No?
PE: I’ll think of it. [Laughing] [Rambouillet sheep.]
RW: Okay, we’ll move on.
PE: I don’t know.
RW: You can just shout it out.
PE: Yeah, okay.
RW: So, what operation is happening then, at the 71? I know that people can go there and have like a dude ranch experience?
PE: Yes, we ran a guest ranch there the last three years. But with the economy the way it’s been, it’s one of the first things a person can say we’re not going to do this year, is a vacation. And a lot of our guests come from Europe, but it’s been so slow, we’ve shut that down.
RW: I see.
PE: For the foreseeable future.
RW: So what’s happening there?
PE: Well, that’s a cattle ranch, the 71.
RW: Um-hmm. So, would that be similar to the Spanish Ranch? I mean, just a mother and –
PE: Cow-calf.
RW: Cow-calf operation?
PE: Um-hmm.
RW: Is there only one operation you have that you’re taking the yearlings and fattening them up at?
PE: Oh, it’s a lot cheaper to move cattle to the feed, rather than taking feed to cattle. So we’ll move yearlings and it depends on where the feed is. We move cattle around. Also, when we bought the PX, it included a feedlot up in Bruneau.
RW: Um-hmm. Ranch Family Oral History Project: Peter K. Ellison Page 10
PE: Idaho, just south of Mountain Home. We take cattle from the PX up to the feedlot, and they get some grain, mostly alfalfa. So we’re moving cattle from ranch to ranch.
RW: And sometimes you’re trucking them?
PE: Yes. Yes, when we go to the – well, the sheep trail up, over the mountain near the PX. But cattle – for the most part the cattle at the 71, that’s a confined herd. So they’ll never see the cattle at the Spanish Ranch, unless they go to the feedlot. And the PX cattle are not inter-mingled with the Spanish Ranch cattle. They’re three different herds.
[26:09]
RW: I see. With the magnitude of size of the cattle and the sheep that you’re running, and the people – I noticed there at the Spanish Ranch that there was a business manager – I mean, there were quite a few different folks that have very specific duties. Is that for the whole Ellison Ranching Company, there at the Spanish, for all the ranches?
PE: Yeah, that’s where the office is, and all of the accounting and purchasing for all of the ranches is done at the Spanish ranch, where the office is. And our general manager lives at the Spanish Ranch, but he travels many, many miles during the year, and he’ll stay at the other ranches. [Our office manager is Aulene Ratliff.]
RW: How autonomous would a job like that be? If you’re a manager, when there’s a president and a board above you, and you’re decisions? How does that work?
PE: Well, his responsibility is the day-to-day operations: deciding what the employees are going to do, where the cattle are going to be, and where the sheep are going to be, when you’re going to brand, and calve, and all of those kinds of decisions are made by the manager. And he also sells cattle and lambs. So he has very broad discretion. And of course, there are things he’ll call me.
I was out there last weekend, doing all kinds of different business deals. There’s a company that’s beginning to construct a geo-thermal power plant at the Spanish Ranch. And I’ve pretty much managed that. Or, there’s a gold mine on part of the Spanish Ranch. And whenever we’re buying or selling a ranch, that’s my major responsibility, but the manager also is very involved in those sorts of decisions, and then ultimately, the board.
RW: I see. During your tenure on the board, and now as the president, how have you seen ranching evolve?
[29:07]
PE: How have things changed? Well, we have – basically, it hasn’t changed all that much.
RW: It sounds like something right out of a cowboy poem.
PE: Yeah! Ranch Family Oral History Project: Peter K. Ellison Page 11
[Laughing]
That’s right, that’s right – I know the line you’re thinking of. But the kinds of – you know, when we used to put up hay, we’d have a huge crew of people to do that. But now, with the equipment, you need about ten or 15% of the people that you used to have to put up hay. So equipment, the kind of bulls we use are different than they used to be. How we sell and market our cattle is very different than it used to be.
RW: Video auction is pretty incredible.
PE: Yeah, that’s right; that’s right. And we use the video auction now, for most of our cattle sales. Wool and lamb, we do a little bit differently. But those are the major kinds of changes that come to mind.
RW: How has working with the BLM, Forest Service, and environmental groups? How has that affected you?
PE: Oh, that’s a good part of the changes that the BLM is much more difficult, and the Forest Service. And we’re being sued by environmentalists quite frequently. There’s a group from Boise, Idaho, called the Western Watersheds. And they want all livestock off of public lands. And I guess they feel like ranchers abuse the range. Well, I don’t think there’s anybody that cares more about the quality of the range than ranchers do. I mean, we’ve been there 100 years, and I hope we’re there for another hundred years. If we abuse the government land that we use, it puts us out of business. We are environmentalists, and we have to be to stay in business. And there are, unfortunately of course, ranchers that do abuse the summer range that’s owned by the government. And it’s too bad, you know; there are bad lawyers, and bad doctors, and bad ranchers. And it makes life for the rest of us very difficult.
[33:06]
RW: Have you ever implemented any – like rotation? I’m not sure what they’re called, but I’ve heard different ranching families talking about you know, maybe having heavy rotation on one piece of ground, and then staying off it. Kind of like you hear with farmers.
PE: That’s right; rotating crops.
RW: Yes.
PE: And yes – we do that. There are some allotments (which an allotment is a large area that’s fenced), and some of our allotments are fenced, maybe into two or three sections. And we’ll rest a third of an allotment for a year, and then move cattle from one of the other thirds, into the area that was rested last year. And so there is some rotation that goes on.
RW: I see. How has it been having a feed yard? Has that been something in the company’s history that you’ve had before? Ranch Family Oral History Project: Peter K. Ellison Page 12
PE: Yeah; we have a couple of feedlots down near the Fish Creek Ranch, in Lander County (south of Battle Mountain). But the one in Idaho is larger, and it has worked well. We pre-finish cattle there (and that means they’re off the range eating alfalfa) before they’re sold, and shipped to Nebraska, or somewhere else where they’re finished (or fattened) with corn and other grains.
RW: I see. What do you think your great-grandfather would think of the operation today?
PE: Well, you know, it’s interesting; I wonder that from time to time. I wonder, “What would EP do?” [or “What would Stanley do?”] And it would be – he died in 1939, and was born in St. Louis in 1850. And when he was two years old, that’s when the family came across the plains to Salt Lake, and then up to Layton. So it would blow his mind to see [laughs] how things are done today. I think he’d be very, very interested, of course, in seeing all of the differences. But when I ask myself, “What would EP do?” Well then I realize, this world is so different, he’d probably be doing the same things that we’re doing, because that’s what ranchers do these days. But that’s an interesting question that I’ve thought about from time to time.
[36:36]
RW: You mentioned earlier (before we got going) that you’ve been kind of working on your own history, and putting down events as you remember them. Are there some kernels about the ranch experience – either as a young boy, or as a family, or as now the president of the corporation – that kind of resonate with you?
PE: Oh, there are. When I talked about the Levi jacket.
RW: Right.
PE: And learning to work hard, and learning about other – you mentioned kind of judging character. And I think that’s true; I can remember making observations about people who didn’t work very hard, or who were good examples and did work very, very hard. I wish I had brought those experiences – I thought about that and didn’t bring that. But so many times I realize that I learned that lesson when I was 13 or 14 years old because of some experience at the ranch.
I remember the first summer we were in the bunk house, and the cowboys were getting to know us – it was our first day there. And one of the cowboys asked if I was a Mormon (very few of the cowboys were Mormons). And I said, “No, I’m not.” (I was baptized when I was about 23, joined the church. But at that time I wasn’t a member of the church.) And he said, “How in the world could you be an Ellison, and not be a Mormon?” And I said, “Well, I grew up in Kentucky, and I went to my mother’s church instead of my father’s church.” And he said, “Well, you’d better go over and tell Red (the boss, Lyle Ellison), tell him that you’re not a Mormon, and you don’t want to participate in the tithing payroll deduction program.”
[Laughing] Ranch Family Oral History Project: Peter K. Ellison Page 13
And I was only 13, and it was the last time I fell for something like that. But I went over and knocked on Red’s door, and told him I didn’t want to be in the tithing payroll deduction plan. And he just laughed, and laughed. He had an infectious laugh. And I turned around, and everybody was standing on the steps of the bunkhouse, waiting for Red’s reaction.
RW: Initiation time for you!
PE: Yeah, that’s right.
[Laughing]
That’s right. I remember that first summer, they just worked us so hard, and it really was an initiation. But at the end of that summer, I remember thinking that, “I am never coming back to this place again, for the rest of my life!” because they pushed us so hard. And our boss, the hay boss, never said one nice thing to me all summer long. And we were packing up to go back to school in early September, and he came over to me, and he said, “You know, you’ve done a really good job.” And it just blew me away; I couldn’t believe it. And in that two or three second time period, I changed my mind about him, and about coming back. And I couldn’t wait to get back to the ranch. But he sure made it tough for that first summer. [Laughs] And then we were initiated, and after that things were great.
[43:14]
RW: Was the initiation for all the young people?
PE: Yeah.
RW: So it had nothing to do with your family association?
PE: No, no. No, it was just the way it was for young people – being broken in. And I think because I was a city boy, and so was my cousin – growing up in Layton, and I grew up in a small town in Kentucky. We were really foreigners; we weren’t from Nevada. Maybe the young people in Winnemucca didn’t get that as much as we did, but I think because we were foreigners we maybe got more of that than –
RW: You were tested a little harder?
PE: Yeah [laughing].
RW: I’ve often wondered – and I’ve asked some of the folks that I’ve interviewed – ranching can be dangerous, and I’ve wondered about some of the initiations, if it wasn’t for safety, or for, you know, you’ve got to weed out somebody who maybe isn’t going to be safe to work with.
PE: Yeah, I think there’s some truth to that. The first summer there, we had a fellow (he wasn’t a young person), but the most complicated piece of machinery on the ranch were Ranch Family Oral History Project: Peter K. Ellison Page 14
balers. And we did bale some hay; we stacked most of it loose, but hay for horses, mainly, we baled. And he got his arm caught in the baler, and just completely almost tore his arm off. And they called Winnemucca, and the ambulance left Winnemucca, and they put him in a pickup and agreed to meet about half-way. But he was dead before he got to town.
So you really have to be careful; equipment and horses are a real hazardous line of work. So yeah, it is a dangerous occupation, and I learned that sort of the hard way with this fellow dying. So it’s equipment and horses – now, we have workman’s compensation of course, and ranching is a very – we spend a million dollars for workman’s compensation. It’s a huge expense.
[46:14]
RW: Is it? That must be one of the changes then?
PE: Yes.
RW: In your lifetime.
PE: That’s right.
RW: As I’m hearing you talk, I keep thinking that it’s got to be a benefit to a ranch, to have the president of a company (because perhaps sometimes it isn’t the case), having done the job himself at some point.
PE: Well, I hope that’s the case; although, you know, there are a lot of things done in the fall, winter and spring that I never participated in. And raising livestock – whenever you think somebody else’s business is pretty simple. But then the more you learn about it, the more you realize, “Good heavens, farmers run a very, very complicated business.” It’s not as easy as it appears. And I guess my major job is to hire good people that have worked in that environment, and know the business. Because there is a lot about ranching that I don’t know. I’ve learned a lot, but there’s a lot that I just don’t know much about.
RW: Well, from your perspective, I guess my last question – then I’ll open it up to you, if you have something you’d like to share – would be, you know, where do you see Ellison Ranching Company (and just ranching, in general), in the next 50 years?
PE: Yeah. Well, I sure won’t be around in 50 years, but I hope that the company is still healthy and in the ranching business. It’s a big part of my life, and of the Ellison family. I would say that Ellison Ranching Company is sort of the crown jewel of the Ellison family. Some of EP Ellison’s companies that he started in the early part of the 20th century are still operating. And I hope that that’s the case for the next 50 to 100 years.
But some of the real obstacles that we face are the environmentalists, and they are putting a lot of pressure on the BLM and the Forest Service to reduce the number of AUMs (Animal Unit Months). And ranches in Nevada are very, very dependent on the use of public lands. [About 92% of Nevada is owned by the Federal Government.] Ranch Family Oral History Project: Peter K. Ellison Page 15
[50:02]
In Florida, you can raise about 20 cattle to the acre, and in Nevada it takes about 20 acres to raise one cow and calf. So, you know, in Florida a cow can almost stand in the same place and eat all year long.
RW: Um-hmm.
PE: Ours, it takes (literally) about a million and a half acres for a ranch our size, with the numbers that we have, to graze in the summer. And it’s a huge undertaking and millions of acres; if we weren’t able to lease those lands from the government, there’s no way in the world we could make any money.
RW: Um-hmm. And we’re not even talking about water.
PE: Yeah, that’s right. Cattle prices right now are very high – but they are always up and down. And we have huge range fires. We lost about – oh, four or five years ago, we lost over a half a million acres of summer grazing to fire. So there’s always a challenge. In the desert there is either too much rain, or not enough. Ranchers always have something to complain about, it seems. It’s a challenging business.
In the 11 western states, there are only about 10 or 11% of the cattle raised in the country. You know, there would be more – you think of Nevada as being cowboy country – but Louisiana would produce a lot more beef than Nevada. Many, many states produce a lot more beef than we do in the west.
RW: I really appreciate you spending some time with me today. Is there something that you were thinking about when we decided to meet, that I haven’t asked you, or that you would like to share?
[52:47]
PE: Well, I’ll think of 100 things, I’m sure, after I leave here. But it’s interesting to me that when EP Ellison decided – I mean, he was in the livestock business, he ran sheep out in Davis County, and always had cattle. But in 1910, when he decided to get into that business in a big way, it’s interesting to me that this business man in Layton, Utah, decided to go to Oravada, Nevada, north of Winnemucca to start buying ranches. There wasn’t a highway across the salt flats to get to Wendover; you had to go down to Delta, and over to Ely, and then up to Wendover, but there was the train. So he would take the train out to Winnemucca (that’s where the company was headquartered in the early years).
But I think he had a vision of the value of the ranches in Nevada, because they had a lot of meadows and a lot of water (even though it’s the most arid state in the union). But summer grazing – and he just was able to figure out that you could make money out there. And he started buying ranches, and they sell and buy some other ranches. But for my great-grandfather to go all the way out in that remote part of Nevada, where it would Ranch Family Oral History Project: Peter K. Ellison Page 16
take a whole day to get from Winnemucca, out to the ranch, in horse-drawn carriage or wagon – that’s always amazed me.
RW: And, he wasn’t young.
[55:18]
PE: No, he was 65 in 1910.
RW: Incredible.
PE: Or 60 – he was 60 years old in 1910. He was – I never knew him; he died about four years before I was born – but he was an amazing man. He only had an eighth grade education. But he was one of those people that just knew how to make things work. And something I don’t think you learn at Harvard Business School; he just knew how to make things work. And he started a lot of different businesses, and was a very, very successful man.
In the book that we did about him (about 10 or 15 years ago), it mentions that Heber J. Grant (the president of the LDS church), sent a letter out to the ten highest tithe payers in the church. And in that letter, he listed the ten people, and how much tithing they paid, and sent that letter. I mean, you can’t imagine that happening today. And EP Ellison, I think, was the fifth or sixth highest tithe payer in the church. And he just had an eighth grade education. I would like to have known him, because he was a very special, one in a million kind of person.
RW: He sounds like it. As I mentioned before we started, I’ve been reading through the book that you gave to the Special Collections, and it’s interesting – he seemed like a person that people wanted to be very loyal to during the Depression years, when the ranching company was having difficulties, and the banks were putting different directors (or people involved). And there was one in particular that sounded like he really was out to get your grandfather out. And boy, it sounded like a lot of people were loyal to your [great] grandpa, to get him back in as the –
PE: Yeah, yeah. He was loyal to them, and he didn’t want anybody to lose a dime. He would buy – if people were in trouble, he would buy their shares back at what they paid for it, so they didn’t lose anything. And he was willing to risk everything he had to make sure that other people didn’t lose money. And there aren’t very many businessmen like that anymore [laughs].
RW: Hmm, not at all. This has been very insightful, and enjoyable. Thank you so much.
PE: Well, thank you.
RW: I appreciate that.
PE: It’s been very interesting. [End recording – 58:35]

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Ranch Family Oral History Project: Peter K. Ellison Page 1
RANCH FAMILY DOCUMENTATION PROJECT
TRANSCRIPTION COVER SHEET
Interviewee: Peter K. Ellison
Place of Interview: Wells Fargo Building, Salt Lake City, UT
Date of Interview: March 25, 2011
Interviewer: Randy Williams
Recordist: Randy Williams
Recording Equipment: Marantz digital recorder: model No: PMD660; Shure omnidirectional microphone: model no.MX 183
Transcription Equipment: Power Player Transcription Software: Executive Communication Systems with foot pedal
Transcribed by: Susan Gross
Transcript Proofed by: Randy Williams (19 May 2011); Peter K. Ellison (August 2011)
Brief Description of Contents: Mr. Ellison talks about his experiences ranching on the Ellison family ranch as a young boy during the summer. He talks about his family history, the history of the Ellison Ranching Company, and his past and current roles in the ranching company as president.
Reference: RW = Randy Williams (Interviewer)
PE = Peter K. Ellison (Interviewee)
NOTE: Interjections during pauses or transitions in dialogue such as “uh” and starts and stops in conversations are not included in transcribed. All additions to transcript are noted with brackets.
TAPE TRANSCRIPTION
[00:01]
RW: Today is the 25th of March, 2011, and I’m here in Salt Lake City, at the Utah State headquarters, at the Wells Fargo building, with Mr. Peter Ellison. Thank you so much for agreeing to be interviewed today for our Ranch Family Documentation project.
PE: Well, thank you; this is going to be fun, I hope [laughs]. Ranch Family Oral History Project: Peter K. Ellison Page 2
RW: I think it will be, too. Well, would you mind giving me your full name, your birthday, and your parents’ names?
PE: My name is Peter K. Ellison, and my father is Harris Adams Ellison; and my mother, Jane Weber Ellison.
RW: Who were your father’s parents?
PE: My father’s father was Lawrence Ephraim Ellison; he was the banker in the family, he was president of First National Bank in Layton almost all of his career. His father started First National Bank, and Ellison Ranching, and quite a few other businesses.
RW: And that was EP Ellison?
PE: Yes.
RW: And I noticed his middle name was Peter – is that where you get your first name?
PE: Yes, yes; his middle name –
RW: Right.
PE: He’s Ephraim Peter.
RW: Excuse me; his middle name is your first name.
PE: Right.
RW: Um-hmm. Well, we were talking, before we went on tape, about your growing up, formative years. And it sounds like part of it, or maybe all of it, was on a ranch. Can you talk a little bit about your growing up years?
PE: Well, I grew up in Kentucky. But at about age 12 I started coming to Utah. The Ellisons came to Utah in 1852, and so my father’s family are in Layton and Kaysville. So I would come out on the bus, or the train at 12 years old, and spend the summer out here. And then when I was 13, my cousin [Matthew R. Simmons] and I (who was the same age) would go out to the ranch and work for the summer.
[02:51]
RW: When you say “ranch” – part of the Ellison Ranching Corporation?
PE: Well actually, the ranch I worked on was a ranch that Ellison Ranching Company used to own (bought in about 1912 or ’13), and then during the Depression sold about five ranches in the Quinn River Valley, north of Winnemucca [Nevada]. And that’s where I worked. But at the time I worked there they weren’t owned by Ellison Ranching Company, but they were owned by Ellisons. Ranch Family Oral History Project: Peter K. Ellison Page 3
RW: I see; so some relatives?
PE: Yes.
RW: I see. One of the things we were talking about just a minute ago, what a great history – in the beginning, in 1910 when your great-great-grandfather started buying ranches.
PE: Yeah, great-grandfather.
RW: Did I say great-great? Great-grandfather.
PE: [Laughs]
RW: Up and through the Depression, and talking about those times, selling off some of the ranches, to pay some of the debt, to be able to consolidate.
PE: Right.
RW: Today Ellison Ranching – I don’t want to get too ahead of myself here, but – is a continued operation. And so do you feel like those experiences as a young, 13 year old boy, working with your family, your cousin and some of your relatives, uniquely prepared you to mange this company today?
[04:33]
PE: Well, my main career was in banking, and I’ve been president of the ranching company now, for about 22 years, and I’d been on the board for 30-plus years. So my real career isn’t ranching, but those experiences certainly helped me to be president of the company. And we have real good people that know a lot more about cattle and sheep than I ever will. But they report to me, so I guess maybe I’m more of a gentleman rancher. But those formative years, working on a ranch, were just invaluable I think; a big part of my life.
RW: Can you tell me a little bit about that time, when you were a young boy?
PE: Well, some of the things, like some of my stories I’ve told to my kids 1,000 times, but we used to make $5 a day. And those were 12 hour days mowing hay, and fixing fence – those are the major summer jobs. And bringing the cattle off the mountain, off the BLM in the late summer, early fall.
But I often think about a Levi jacket in Winnemucca that I just wanted in the worst way, and it was $11. And every time we’d go into town, we got a half a day off every other Sunday. And we’d go into to town, and I’d go to this store and look at this Levi jacket. I’d figure it would take me two and a quarter days to make $11. And I never did buy it. Finally, I’d been telling this story to my kids so many times that they finally bought me a Levi jacket.
[Laughing] Ranch Family Oral History Project: Peter K. Ellison Page 4
[07:35]
But it taught me the value of a dollar. That’s just one lesson.
RW: Um-hmm.
PE: That helps you throughout your life. And working hard, and being expected to do a good job. You are measured as a man, or a person, by how hard you worked. And if you didn’t work very hard, you weren’t much of a person.
RW: So, did you start out stacking, or what was one of your entry-level jobs?
PE: I started out mowing hay.
RW: Mowing.
PE: And being on top of a stack, we had a buck rake—a beaver slide—process of making hay stacks (just loose hay in stacks).
RW: Um-hmm.
PE: And you could make $7 a day by being on top of the stack. And hay would be dumped on top of you, and there were two of us up there tromping the hay, and compacting it a little bit. And so I thought, “Well, for two bucks a day, that’s a heck of a raise; I’ll do that.” And I soon realized why nobody wanted that job, even at $7 a day. So I went back to mowing hay, and raking, and a buck rake [to push the hay onto the beaver slide].
RW: Um-hmm.
PE: So it was fun as a 13, 14, 15 year old kid, to be driving this equipment. I really enjoyed that.
RW: Was the equipment, when you were a boy, horse drawn, or were you working with mechanized?
PE: Yeah, it was – the Ellison Ranching Company – I think the first tractor that the company bought was in about 1940. But most of the work was done with horses – mowing, raking, putting up hay. Stanley Ellison used to say that tractors were nice, but when it’s cold [they wouldn’t start], horses always started. And so they used horses for a long time. But when I was working there, we were driving tractors.
[10:36]
RW: Now Stanley would have been your father’s cousin?
PE: Yes.
RW: So was he the manager of the – Ranch Family Oral History Project: Peter K. Ellison Page 5
PE: Yes.
RW: Ellison Ranching Company when you were a boy?
PE: Yes.
RW: Did you kind of – I don’t know – work underneath him as you were going through?
PE: Well, when I was working – I am confusing the situation because the ranch I worked on over in Orovada, Nevada was an Ellison Ranching Company ranch until about 1931, I think. And one of EP Ellison’s sons bought several ranches north of Winnemucca. And so the Ellison I worked for was Lyle Ellison.
RW: Hmm. So when the Ellison Company was selling off to the bank, then one of his sons purchased it from the bank? [Mr. Ellison notes: This was the Home Ranch. Rebel Creek and the Buffalo Ranch.]
PE: No, he purchased it directly from the company.
RW: I see; interesting. Well, over the years did you continue to go back, during your teenage years and work for him?
PE: Yes, yes.
RW: You mentioned that you did a little cowboying; I mean, you were doing a lot of summer haying, but what kind of cowboying jobs did you do?
PE: Well, when school was out, that was about the time they were taking the cattle up on the mountain that was BLM and Forest Service property.
RW: Um-hmm. So, moving off deeded ground?
[12:28]
PE: Right, yeah – out of the meadows and up to the summer grazing. And then in the late summer, sometimes we’d start bringing the cattle back.
RW: Did you work with the crew on branding? Was that too –
PE: Sometimes; most of the branding was done in April.
RW: Um-hmm.
PE: But we’d find calves that hadn’t been branded, and so we’d, you know, have a dozen of them to do at a time.
RW: Well one of the things I’m real curious about is the Ellison Ranching Corporation, or the company itself. You mentioned for many years, before you actually were the president, Ranch Family Oral History Project: Peter K. Ellison Page 6
you were on the board. How has that worked? Because I know, reading through the book about your great-grandfather that there was a board from the very beginning.
PE: Yes.
RW: And it sounds like that has continue through?
PE: Yes; it started as a Utah corporation, and then in 1952, it became a Nevada corporation. But like any corporation, you have a president, and other officers, and a board of directors, and we’ve always met quarterly. And of course the board sets policy, and approves major business decisions. So that was very interesting. Earnest Wilkinson was a member of the board; he was president of BYU. And when he died in 1978, that’s when I went on the board.
RW: How many board members are there?
[14:42]
PE: There’s seven right now; and there have been five to seven. I remember (speaking of Earnest Wilkinson), that one board meeting . . . (I used to attend board meetings before I was actually a member of the board. Stanley Ellison invited me to attend these meetings. And I remember the first time I met Earnest Wilkinson.) . . . he came to the meeting and he said, “Stanley, we now have 10,000 students at Brigham Young University. So we finally have more students than you have cows.”
RW: [Laughing]
PE: And Stanley said, “Yeah, but our cows are a lot smarter.”
[Laughing]
RW: Oh.
PE: And it wasn’t too long after that that Mr. Wilkinson died, and I took his place [in 1978].
RW: Well, you (off tape) mentioned that you’ve had the good fortune of working with a lot of great ranch managers. How does a ranching corporation find ranch managers, and all the different personnel that actually do the day-in, day-out work on a ranch?
PE: Well, from 1910 until about 2002 – all of the managers were Ellisons [or married to an Ellison]. Finally, by around 2002, I was president, and we needed a ranch manager to manage all of the ranches. And that was the first time we didn’t have a family member that we felt good about putting in that job. So we advertised in the Western Livestock Journal (which is sort of the Bible of ranching), and got about 150.
RW: Wow. Ranch Family Oral History Project: Peter K. Ellison Page 7
PE: Applications or resumes. And we narrowed it down to the person we hired. And he’s a very good manager.
RW: So since 2002 you’ve had this gentleman?
PE: Um-hmm.
RW: What’s his name?
PE: Bill Hall.
RW: Where did he come out of?
PE: He was managing a ranch in Colorado, up near the Wyoming border.
[17:43]
RW: I see. Now, you say a ranch manager – you’re talking about ranches?
PE: Yes.
RW: Because there’s more than one ranch.
PE: That’s right.
RW: In the corporation. How many ranches are there today, in the Ellison Ranching Company?
PE: Today, our headquarter ranch is the Spanish Ranch, near Tuscarora, Nevada. And then we have the 71 Ranch, which is near Halleck, Nevada (east of Elko about 20 miles). And the PX Ranch, which is in North Fork, Nevada (over the mountains from the Spanish Ranch). And we connect, we border the PX in a lot of places. We just bought that ranch about four years ago. In fact, Bing Crosby used to own the PX. And then we have Fish Creek Ranch, south of Battle Mountain [Nevada], and several farms where we grow alfalfa (mostly). So there are four major ranches.
RW: Um-hmm. One of the things I was so impressed – I mentioned to you that I was over at the Spanish Ranch last summer, interviewing the cow boss out there: Ira T. Wines. And it was so interesting, in my interview with Ira, learning about how at the Spanish they have the big cow-calf operation, but then a lot of the yearlings will go somewhere else.
PE: Right.
RW: Can you talk a little bit about some of the different activities at some of your ranches?
PE: The Squaw Valley ranch that we owned until about 1995 (and we traded that ranch for the 71 ranch) it was the Squaw Valley ranch – a very large ranch close to Midas, Nevada. (And I can show you on a map where all these places are.) Ranch Family Oral History Project: Peter K. Ellison Page 8
RW: Um-hmm. I recognize that name – wasn’t that one that your great-grandfather bought?
PE: Yes.
RW: Seemed like you had that for a long time.
PE: 1916, I think.
RW: Um-hmm.
PE: And we take – our sheep [where they] winter down by the Fish Creek Ranch, south of Battle Mountain, and then they trail north and east, through Squaw Valley (and we still do this; we reserved the right to bring our sheep through Squaw Valley), into the Spanish Ranch, and then all the way up to near where the PX is. We had a lot of property around Gold Creek, Wild Horse reservoir, that area. So our sheep go all the way up there, and then in the fall they start coming back. And it’s about 200 miles that those sheep and the sheep herders are walking back and forth twice a year. So in a year, they go about 400 miles.
RW: Some distance.
PE: Yeah; that’s like from here to Cedar City and back.
RW: Um-hmm.
PE: And the PX – we don’t really raise sheep on the PX, or the 71 Ranch. But Fish Creek, and then they trail through the Spanish Ranch. But, the summer grazing for sheep are up near Wild Horse reservoir.
RW: I see. Is that the only holding that you keep sheep at? Or do you have sheep at other places?
PE: No; all the sheep – we have about 10,000 sheep, and they’re all together. I mean, in different bands.
RW: Right.
PE: We have five bands of about 2,000 sheep. So they’re not all lumped together in one band.
RW: Sure.
PE: We keep them separated.
[22:40]
RW: What breed or breeds are you?
PE: The sheep are – oh my goodness. It’ll come to me in a minute, when I’m not thinking about it, but very common. Ranch Family Oral History Project: Peter K. Ellison Page 9
RW: Like a Suffolk’s?
PE: No, no.
RW: No?
PE: I’ll think of it. [Laughing] [Rambouillet sheep.]
RW: Okay, we’ll move on.
PE: I don’t know.
RW: You can just shout it out.
PE: Yeah, okay.
RW: So, what operation is happening then, at the 71? I know that people can go there and have like a dude ranch experience?
PE: Yes, we ran a guest ranch there the last three years. But with the economy the way it’s been, it’s one of the first things a person can say we’re not going to do this year, is a vacation. And a lot of our guests come from Europe, but it’s been so slow, we’ve shut that down.
RW: I see.
PE: For the foreseeable future.
RW: So what’s happening there?
PE: Well, that’s a cattle ranch, the 71.
RW: Um-hmm. So, would that be similar to the Spanish Ranch? I mean, just a mother and –
PE: Cow-calf.
RW: Cow-calf operation?
PE: Um-hmm.
RW: Is there only one operation you have that you’re taking the yearlings and fattening them up at?
PE: Oh, it’s a lot cheaper to move cattle to the feed, rather than taking feed to cattle. So we’ll move yearlings and it depends on where the feed is. We move cattle around. Also, when we bought the PX, it included a feedlot up in Bruneau.
RW: Um-hmm. Ranch Family Oral History Project: Peter K. Ellison Page 10
PE: Idaho, just south of Mountain Home. We take cattle from the PX up to the feedlot, and they get some grain, mostly alfalfa. So we’re moving cattle from ranch to ranch.
RW: And sometimes you’re trucking them?
PE: Yes. Yes, when we go to the – well, the sheep trail up, over the mountain near the PX. But cattle – for the most part the cattle at the 71, that’s a confined herd. So they’ll never see the cattle at the Spanish Ranch, unless they go to the feedlot. And the PX cattle are not inter-mingled with the Spanish Ranch cattle. They’re three different herds.
[26:09]
RW: I see. With the magnitude of size of the cattle and the sheep that you’re running, and the people – I noticed there at the Spanish Ranch that there was a business manager – I mean, there were quite a few different folks that have very specific duties. Is that for the whole Ellison Ranching Company, there at the Spanish, for all the ranches?
PE: Yeah, that’s where the office is, and all of the accounting and purchasing for all of the ranches is done at the Spanish ranch, where the office is. And our general manager lives at the Spanish Ranch, but he travels many, many miles during the year, and he’ll stay at the other ranches. [Our office manager is Aulene Ratliff.]
RW: How autonomous would a job like that be? If you’re a manager, when there’s a president and a board above you, and you’re decisions? How does that work?
PE: Well, his responsibility is the day-to-day operations: deciding what the employees are going to do, where the cattle are going to be, and where the sheep are going to be, when you’re going to brand, and calve, and all of those kinds of decisions are made by the manager. And he also sells cattle and lambs. So he has very broad discretion. And of course, there are things he’ll call me.
I was out there last weekend, doing all kinds of different business deals. There’s a company that’s beginning to construct a geo-thermal power plant at the Spanish Ranch. And I’ve pretty much managed that. Or, there’s a gold mine on part of the Spanish Ranch. And whenever we’re buying or selling a ranch, that’s my major responsibility, but the manager also is very involved in those sorts of decisions, and then ultimately, the board.
RW: I see. During your tenure on the board, and now as the president, how have you seen ranching evolve?
[29:07]
PE: How have things changed? Well, we have – basically, it hasn’t changed all that much.
RW: It sounds like something right out of a cowboy poem.
PE: Yeah! Ranch Family Oral History Project: Peter K. Ellison Page 11
[Laughing]
That’s right, that’s right – I know the line you’re thinking of. But the kinds of – you know, when we used to put up hay, we’d have a huge crew of people to do that. But now, with the equipment, you need about ten or 15% of the people that you used to have to put up hay. So equipment, the kind of bulls we use are different than they used to be. How we sell and market our cattle is very different than it used to be.
RW: Video auction is pretty incredible.
PE: Yeah, that’s right; that’s right. And we use the video auction now, for most of our cattle sales. Wool and lamb, we do a little bit differently. But those are the major kinds of changes that come to mind.
RW: How has working with the BLM, Forest Service, and environmental groups? How has that affected you?
PE: Oh, that’s a good part of the changes that the BLM is much more difficult, and the Forest Service. And we’re being sued by environmentalists quite frequently. There’s a group from Boise, Idaho, called the Western Watersheds. And they want all livestock off of public lands. And I guess they feel like ranchers abuse the range. Well, I don’t think there’s anybody that cares more about the quality of the range than ranchers do. I mean, we’ve been there 100 years, and I hope we’re there for another hundred years. If we abuse the government land that we use, it puts us out of business. We are environmentalists, and we have to be to stay in business. And there are, unfortunately of course, ranchers that do abuse the summer range that’s owned by the government. And it’s too bad, you know; there are bad lawyers, and bad doctors, and bad ranchers. And it makes life for the rest of us very difficult.
[33:06]
RW: Have you ever implemented any – like rotation? I’m not sure what they’re called, but I’ve heard different ranching families talking about you know, maybe having heavy rotation on one piece of ground, and then staying off it. Kind of like you hear with farmers.
PE: That’s right; rotating crops.
RW: Yes.
PE: And yes – we do that. There are some allotments (which an allotment is a large area that’s fenced), and some of our allotments are fenced, maybe into two or three sections. And we’ll rest a third of an allotment for a year, and then move cattle from one of the other thirds, into the area that was rested last year. And so there is some rotation that goes on.
RW: I see. How has it been having a feed yard? Has that been something in the company’s history that you’ve had before? Ranch Family Oral History Project: Peter K. Ellison Page 12
PE: Yeah; we have a couple of feedlots down near the Fish Creek Ranch, in Lander County (south of Battle Mountain). But the one in Idaho is larger, and it has worked well. We pre-finish cattle there (and that means they’re off the range eating alfalfa) before they’re sold, and shipped to Nebraska, or somewhere else where they’re finished (or fattened) with corn and other grains.
RW: I see. What do you think your great-grandfather would think of the operation today?
PE: Well, you know, it’s interesting; I wonder that from time to time. I wonder, “What would EP do?” [or “What would Stanley do?”] And it would be – he died in 1939, and was born in St. Louis in 1850. And when he was two years old, that’s when the family came across the plains to Salt Lake, and then up to Layton. So it would blow his mind to see [laughs] how things are done today. I think he’d be very, very interested, of course, in seeing all of the differences. But when I ask myself, “What would EP do?” Well then I realize, this world is so different, he’d probably be doing the same things that we’re doing, because that’s what ranchers do these days. But that’s an interesting question that I’ve thought about from time to time.
[36:36]
RW: You mentioned earlier (before we got going) that you’ve been kind of working on your own history, and putting down events as you remember them. Are there some kernels about the ranch experience – either as a young boy, or as a family, or as now the president of the corporation – that kind of resonate with you?
PE: Oh, there are. When I talked about the Levi jacket.
RW: Right.
PE: And learning to work hard, and learning about other – you mentioned kind of judging character. And I think that’s true; I can remember making observations about people who didn’t work very hard, or who were good examples and did work very, very hard. I wish I had brought those experiences – I thought about that and didn’t bring that. But so many times I realize that I learned that lesson when I was 13 or 14 years old because of some experience at the ranch.
I remember the first summer we were in the bunk house, and the cowboys were getting to know us – it was our first day there. And one of the cowboys asked if I was a Mormon (very few of the cowboys were Mormons). And I said, “No, I’m not.” (I was baptized when I was about 23, joined the church. But at that time I wasn’t a member of the church.) And he said, “How in the world could you be an Ellison, and not be a Mormon?” And I said, “Well, I grew up in Kentucky, and I went to my mother’s church instead of my father’s church.” And he said, “Well, you’d better go over and tell Red (the boss, Lyle Ellison), tell him that you’re not a Mormon, and you don’t want to participate in the tithing payroll deduction program.”
[Laughing] Ranch Family Oral History Project: Peter K. Ellison Page 13
And I was only 13, and it was the last time I fell for something like that. But I went over and knocked on Red’s door, and told him I didn’t want to be in the tithing payroll deduction plan. And he just laughed, and laughed. He had an infectious laugh. And I turned around, and everybody was standing on the steps of the bunkhouse, waiting for Red’s reaction.
RW: Initiation time for you!
PE: Yeah, that’s right.
[Laughing]
That’s right. I remember that first summer, they just worked us so hard, and it really was an initiation. But at the end of that summer, I remember thinking that, “I am never coming back to this place again, for the rest of my life!” because they pushed us so hard. And our boss, the hay boss, never said one nice thing to me all summer long. And we were packing up to go back to school in early September, and he came over to me, and he said, “You know, you’ve done a really good job.” And it just blew me away; I couldn’t believe it. And in that two or three second time period, I changed my mind about him, and about coming back. And I couldn’t wait to get back to the ranch. But he sure made it tough for that first summer. [Laughs] And then we were initiated, and after that things were great.
[43:14]
RW: Was the initiation for all the young people?
PE: Yeah.
RW: So it had nothing to do with your family association?
PE: No, no. No, it was just the way it was for young people – being broken in. And I think because I was a city boy, and so was my cousin – growing up in Layton, and I grew up in a small town in Kentucky. We were really foreigners; we weren’t from Nevada. Maybe the young people in Winnemucca didn’t get that as much as we did, but I think because we were foreigners we maybe got more of that than –
RW: You were tested a little harder?
PE: Yeah [laughing].
RW: I’ve often wondered – and I’ve asked some of the folks that I’ve interviewed – ranching can be dangerous, and I’ve wondered about some of the initiations, if it wasn’t for safety, or for, you know, you’ve got to weed out somebody who maybe isn’t going to be safe to work with.
PE: Yeah, I think there’s some truth to that. The first summer there, we had a fellow (he wasn’t a young person), but the most complicated piece of machinery on the ranch were Ranch Family Oral History Project: Peter K. Ellison Page 14
balers. And we did bale some hay; we stacked most of it loose, but hay for horses, mainly, we baled. And he got his arm caught in the baler, and just completely almost tore his arm off. And they called Winnemucca, and the ambulance left Winnemucca, and they put him in a pickup and agreed to meet about half-way. But he was dead before he got to town.
So you really have to be careful; equipment and horses are a real hazardous line of work. So yeah, it is a dangerous occupation, and I learned that sort of the hard way with this fellow dying. So it’s equipment and horses – now, we have workman’s compensation of course, and ranching is a very – we spend a million dollars for workman’s compensation. It’s a huge expense.
[46:14]
RW: Is it? That must be one of the changes then?
PE: Yes.
RW: In your lifetime.
PE: That’s right.
RW: As I’m hearing you talk, I keep thinking that it’s got to be a benefit to a ranch, to have the president of a company (because perhaps sometimes it isn’t the case), having done the job himself at some point.
PE: Well, I hope that’s the case; although, you know, there are a lot of things done in the fall, winter and spring that I never participated in. And raising livestock – whenever you think somebody else’s business is pretty simple. But then the more you learn about it, the more you realize, “Good heavens, farmers run a very, very complicated business.” It’s not as easy as it appears. And I guess my major job is to hire good people that have worked in that environment, and know the business. Because there is a lot about ranching that I don’t know. I’ve learned a lot, but there’s a lot that I just don’t know much about.
RW: Well, from your perspective, I guess my last question – then I’ll open it up to you, if you have something you’d like to share – would be, you know, where do you see Ellison Ranching Company (and just ranching, in general), in the next 50 years?
PE: Yeah. Well, I sure won’t be around in 50 years, but I hope that the company is still healthy and in the ranching business. It’s a big part of my life, and of the Ellison family. I would say that Ellison Ranching Company is sort of the crown jewel of the Ellison family. Some of EP Ellison’s companies that he started in the early part of the 20th century are still operating. And I hope that that’s the case for the next 50 to 100 years.
But some of the real obstacles that we face are the environmentalists, and they are putting a lot of pressure on the BLM and the Forest Service to reduce the number of AUMs (Animal Unit Months). And ranches in Nevada are very, very dependent on the use of public lands. [About 92% of Nevada is owned by the Federal Government.] Ranch Family Oral History Project: Peter K. Ellison Page 15
[50:02]
In Florida, you can raise about 20 cattle to the acre, and in Nevada it takes about 20 acres to raise one cow and calf. So, you know, in Florida a cow can almost stand in the same place and eat all year long.
RW: Um-hmm.
PE: Ours, it takes (literally) about a million and a half acres for a ranch our size, with the numbers that we have, to graze in the summer. And it’s a huge undertaking and millions of acres; if we weren’t able to lease those lands from the government, there’s no way in the world we could make any money.
RW: Um-hmm. And we’re not even talking about water.
PE: Yeah, that’s right. Cattle prices right now are very high – but they are always up and down. And we have huge range fires. We lost about – oh, four or five years ago, we lost over a half a million acres of summer grazing to fire. So there’s always a challenge. In the desert there is either too much rain, or not enough. Ranchers always have something to complain about, it seems. It’s a challenging business.
In the 11 western states, there are only about 10 or 11% of the cattle raised in the country. You know, there would be more – you think of Nevada as being cowboy country – but Louisiana would produce a lot more beef than Nevada. Many, many states produce a lot more beef than we do in the west.
RW: I really appreciate you spending some time with me today. Is there something that you were thinking about when we decided to meet, that I haven’t asked you, or that you would like to share?
[52:47]
PE: Well, I’ll think of 100 things, I’m sure, after I leave here. But it’s interesting to me that when EP Ellison decided – I mean, he was in the livestock business, he ran sheep out in Davis County, and always had cattle. But in 1910, when he decided to get into that business in a big way, it’s interesting to me that this business man in Layton, Utah, decided to go to Oravada, Nevada, north of Winnemucca to start buying ranches. There wasn’t a highway across the salt flats to get to Wendover; you had to go down to Delta, and over to Ely, and then up to Wendover, but there was the train. So he would take the train out to Winnemucca (that’s where the company was headquartered in the early years).
But I think he had a vision of the value of the ranches in Nevada, because they had a lot of meadows and a lot of water (even though it’s the most arid state in the union). But summer grazing – and he just was able to figure out that you could make money out there. And he started buying ranches, and they sell and buy some other ranches. But for my great-grandfather to go all the way out in that remote part of Nevada, where it would Ranch Family Oral History Project: Peter K. Ellison Page 16
take a whole day to get from Winnemucca, out to the ranch, in horse-drawn carriage or wagon – that’s always amazed me.
RW: And, he wasn’t young.
[55:18]
PE: No, he was 65 in 1910.
RW: Incredible.
PE: Or 60 – he was 60 years old in 1910. He was – I never knew him; he died about four years before I was born – but he was an amazing man. He only had an eighth grade education. But he was one of those people that just knew how to make things work. And something I don’t think you learn at Harvard Business School; he just knew how to make things work. And he started a lot of different businesses, and was a very, very successful man.
In the book that we did about him (about 10 or 15 years ago), it mentions that Heber J. Grant (the president of the LDS church), sent a letter out to the ten highest tithe payers in the church. And in that letter, he listed the ten people, and how much tithing they paid, and sent that letter. I mean, you can’t imagine that happening today. And EP Ellison, I think, was the fifth or sixth highest tithe payer in the church. And he just had an eighth grade education. I would like to have known him, because he was a very special, one in a million kind of person.
RW: He sounds like it. As I mentioned before we started, I’ve been reading through the book that you gave to the Special Collections, and it’s interesting – he seemed like a person that people wanted to be very loyal to during the Depression years, when the ranching company was having difficulties, and the banks were putting different directors (or people involved). And there was one in particular that sounded like he really was out to get your grandfather out. And boy, it sounded like a lot of people were loyal to your [great] grandpa, to get him back in as the –
PE: Yeah, yeah. He was loyal to them, and he didn’t want anybody to lose a dime. He would buy – if people were in trouble, he would buy their shares back at what they paid for it, so they didn’t lose anything. And he was willing to risk everything he had to make sure that other people didn’t lose money. And there aren’t very many businessmen like that anymore [laughs].
RW: Hmm, not at all. This has been very insightful, and enjoyable. Thank you so much.
PE: Well, thank you.
RW: I appreciate that.
PE: It’s been very interesting. [End recording – 58:35]